You worked hard to interest a reporter in your story, aced the interview and the article finally appears. All your hard work has finally paid off.
Not so fast.
Once an article is published, how you merchandise it will drive the return on your investment of time and effort.
We have been working with a software company and over the past six months we’ve placed and written byline articles that have appeared in about a dozen publications.
Imagine our surprise when we learned that none of these articles was published on their website. Since prospects typically go to a website to check out a company before contacting them, this represents a huge missed opportunity.
Once an article appears, it’s crucial to maximize exposure of it. Here are best practices for merchandising PR hits:
- Put in on your website in the “In the News” section and include a link to a PDF of the article since live links can get broken.
- Get social. Let your followers know you’ve been featured in an article by tweeting it, sharing on Facebook, posting to LinkedIn, and sharing it on social network sites such as Digg, Delicious, Reddit, etc.
- Blog about it. Draft a short blog post that describes the article and your role in it.
- Send media clips to your customers and prospects to reinforce your value.
- Highlight media placements in your e-newsletter that goes to customers, prospects, business partners and vendors.
- Give copies of strong articles to your sales reps so they can use them on sales calls; a third party endorsement builds confidence in your firm.
- Give copies to your customer service and front desk people, so when someone calls and mentions the article they will know about it.
- Include excerpts from the article in speeches you give at networking and industry events.
- Tell your friends, family and investors. The fact that the media covered you is a strong reason to talk about what’s new with your company and to keep your products and services top of mind should someone need a referral.
- Consider having a customized plaque made of the article and display it in your office lobby. This is a great way to make an impression on people visiting your office.